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Pope Resigns

This is very unusual– as Donald R. McClarey at the site I heard it from, The American Catholic, pointed out:

This would be the fifth time that a Pope has abdicated in the history of the Papacy, the first being Pope Gregory XII in 1415.

The decision comes after a “long period of prayer”

28 Feb he goes into a period of reflection and prayer, and then there will be a conclave to elect the new Pope. (No period of mourning, so it could be over in less than two weeks after the period of reflection ends.) This is taken pretty much directly from the video report at the link, which seems to be radio over some stock footage.

I hope that, whatever his health problems are, they won’t be bad enough to prevent him from spending time with his brother (also a retired priest) and his cats.

UPDATE:

EWTN just posted their news article on the subject; the press conference is to be held “in a few minutes” and here is the text of his announcement:

Dear Brothers,I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering. However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me. For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on 19 April 2005, in such a way, that as from 28 February 2013, at 20:00 hours, the See of Rome, the See of Saint Peter, will be vacant and a Conclave to elect the new Supreme Pontiff will have to be convoked by those whose competence it is.Dear Brothers, I thank you most sincerely for all the love and work with which you have supported me in my ministry and I ask pardon for all my defects. And now, let us entrust the Holy Church to the care of Our Supreme Pastor, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and implore his holy Mother Mary, so that she may assist the Cardinal Fathers with her maternal solicitude, in electing a new Supreme Pontiff. With regard to myself, I wish to also devotedly serve the Holy Church of God in the future through a life dedicated to prayer.From the Vatican, 10 February 2013

Oh, and the “prophecy” is basically just an old fiction-song made to manipulate politics at the time it was written. There’s no record of it until it showed up as an ancient prophecy, and it sure isn’t accepted by the Church.

On top of that, the end prediction is just dumb. It basically just says “there will be a Pope until judgement day,” which may be shocking to the folks who think the Pope is the antichrist, but meh.
The ancient bard that wrote it should be saluted for a firm grasp of prophetic writing ability, but not taken seriously.

Put it this way:
if someone, with zero evidence, printed up a “prophecy” that they said a famous saint known to be blessed with prophetic visions who’d been dead for 400 years, which incidentally supported the guy they wanted to be Pope next, and told you that it had been discovered in the archives golly gee he must’ve hidden it there because that’s exactly what you do with a prophecy, right, it’s gotta be true look at how precise it’s been up to now…
Would you believe it?

(I will admit some high disgust bias against NewsMax on this topic, since their #1 pick for pope is the guy who leads the let’s-ban-guns-and-make-a-one-world-government paper pushing group in the Vatican.)